Silver’s policy paper pushes minimum wage increase tied to inflation

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, D-Manhattan, continued his push today to increase the minimum wage and tie future increases to inflation, saying it has only increased 10 cents over the past six years.

Silver wants to increase the state’s minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $9 an hour and link any additional increases to inflation. Silver said that a full-time minimum wage employee currently earns about $15,000 a year.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo has proposed an increase to $8.75 an hour that isn’t tied to indexing. He included his proposal in the state budget, but he has indicated recently that his plan may be complicated by President Obama’s proposal to increase it to $9 an hour.

“The reality is that the current minimum wage is not sufficient to provide food and shelter let alone access to health care or retirement security,” Silver said in a statement.

Silver’s report said that a minimum wage of $9 an hour would benefit more than 925,000 workers in New York and particularly help minority workers and women. The report also said it would help the economy, disputing claims by business groups that an increase in the minimum wage would lead to job cuts.

Silver’s legislation would increase the minimum wage to $9 an hour in January, then it would be indexed in 2015 to the rate of inflation.

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